


Lack of Understanding

by Crypticbeliever123



Series: In Your Dreams [11]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Autism, Dreams, F/M, Kid Fic, Nightmares, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 00:29:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crypticbeliever123/pseuds/Crypticbeliever123
Summary: After a teacher suggests that Donovan Snart may be autistic Sara and Leonard have very different reactions to the possibility.





	Lack of Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> As someone with Asperger's I thought it would be interesting to write a kid who was on the spectrum too. Some of what I wrote in is what I know from experience, a lot I learned from research online. Anyone who is or knows someone on the spectrum see anything I got wrong, please point it out.

At about two and a half years old Donovan still wasn’t talking even to the other kids at his new preschool. Sara still insisted that it wasn’t anything to worry about but truth be told she was worried. Kids are supposed to talk, right? And interact with others?

 

Then when she and Leonard arrived to pick up their beautiful golden-haired boy, his teacher came up to them to talk about his unusual behavior suggesting that he may have Autism noting his lack of speech and social skills as her reasoning. Sara was upset by the suggestion to have him tested and stormed out of there.

 

Later at home Donovan was lining up his blocks as Leonard passed each one to him.

 

“Who does she think she is?! Saying our son has a disability?!” Sara ranted.

“She didn’t say he had a disability, she said he might be autistic and quite frankly I agree.”

“You agree?”

“Yes. I told you I’ve been worried about him not talking so I did some research on why that might be. Autism was one of the possibilities and the more I researched it the more it made sense. He has other signs than what the teacher pointed out.”

“Like what?”

“Like how he flaps his hands sometimes, especially when he’s excited. How he walks on his toes all the time, how he doesn’t respond, the way he sticks to a routine even when we don’t set one out for him, his trouble sleeping. It all fits!”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said before noticing Donovan reaching over him for a red block.

“Oh, here you go, Vanny,” he said passing the toy to him.

 

Leonard then took a look at the line he was making with the blocks.

 

“Hey, I see what you’re doing. You’re putting the different colors together and putting them in order from big to little. So that means this one goes… here, right?” he said as placed a small blue block in its place in the line.

 

Donovan then started to flap his hands as Leonard did that. Len smiled at his little boy.

 

“See? He’s happy. I finally understand him,” he said as he gave his son a brief hug.

“We’ve always understood him. We’re his parents.”

“That doesn’t mean we know what Van’s thinking.”

“Donovan!” the little boy screamed.

“What did you say, Vanny?” Leonard asked him as his smile grew wider at the sound of his son’s first word.

“Donovan!” he said as he grabbed one of the blocks and started pounding it on the floor.

“Donovan! Donovan! Donovan!”

“Great, he’s throwing a tantrum,” Sara groaned.

“Donovan! Donovan!”

“Oh! Okay, Donovan it is then,” Len said taking the block from his hand.

“You don’t like your nicknames too much, do you?”

“His nicknames are fine, Len!” Sara insisted.

“Well he doesn’t seem to think so.”

 

Sara just stared at her son and Leonard playing with the blocks worrying about the possibility of Donovan being autistic and what it meant for him down the road.

 

* * *

 

Donovan was sitting alone in the dark and Sara tried to reach out to him.

 

“Van? Vanny, come to mommy!” she told him only to watch him slowly start to drift away as he ignored her.

“Van! Donovan, come to mommy! Come to me, please!” she yelled the further away he got.

“Just take my hand, Vanny! Vanny! Vanny!” she screamed as he disappeared completely into the dark void.

 

* * *

 

She awoke to her son standing at her bedside with his teddy bear in his arms.

 

“Hey, you okay?” she asked him softly hoping not to wake Len who was still fast asleep.

 

Instead of answering he just climbed into the bed and curled up next to his mother. She didn’t need to hear him say a thing. She knew what it was like to be a kid with a nightmare. As she pulled him closer to her she wondered how anyone could think that a kid that would come to his parents after having a bad dream was on the spectrum.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave feedback!


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